1. If you don't watch your child and they throw themselves down the two flights of stairs that are right next to my desk, I am allowed to laugh.

2. Any comments about the dead plant on the obit girl's (MY) desk means I get to add you to my "dead stuff" collection. Protests that you aren't dead yet will be quickly rectified.

3. If you ask me a stupid question about nothing to do with obits, the newspaper, or the universe as science understands it, and I stare at you with a look of utter confusion on my face, and you start to get huffy, I can pick up my Route 44 size Dr Pepper and pour it on you. And then you will buy me a new one AND mop the carpet.

4. If I answer the phone "Newsroom" and the first words out of your mouth are "Is this the newsroom?" I am allowed to put a trace on your line and have your phone shut off for a week.

5. For my coworkers...if you leave food on my desk overnight, for whatever bizarre reason, and I come in the next morning and there are fireants all over my desk, I am allowed to make you lick them up.

__________________"Maybe the problem just went away...maybe it was the magical sniper fairy that comes and gives silenced hollow point rounds to people who don't eat their vegetables."